More New Toys and Comics

As I sat down to write a post with the new toys I've received over the last two or three weeks, I realized there was an uncompleted post from before Halloween, that I apparently forgot I was in the middle of it. So finished up the photos and posted it. You'll have to wait a few days (or weeks probably) before I get around to write up a new one with the latest stuff.

Let's start with books. I started re-reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, because there are 11 or 12 books out, but I've only read 8 or maybe 9, despite owning all of them (I think). I've really been enjoying it, reading the third book in 2 or 3 days. But when I went to start the fourth one, I couldn't find it! Oh noes! Turns out, last Christmas my brother was reading the books, so I gave him our copy of books 4 and 5. Curses! Of course, it took about three weeks to receive them from eBay/Amazon, and my local library had all the books EXCEPT 4. I had to steal my cousin's library card to go to the good library, that had three or four copies of the entire series. Anyway, point being, I bought books 4 and 5 of The Wheel of Time, slowly converting our paperback collection to hardback.

Comics!

I'm endeavoring to acquire House of M and its tie-ins, along with Civil War, the newest arrivals are 5 Civil War books (Road To Civil War, Peter Parker Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, New Avengers, and Heroes for Hire) and 2 House of M (Amazing Spider-man and Uncanny X-Men (not pictured) ). My daughters were helping me take pictures. Also got a few JLA comics, one in particular that I've been trying to get for a while (without paying too much for it): JLA: Ultramarine Corps, for two reasons, the first being it's drawn by Ed McGuinness, whose art I LOVE. I generally read comics for the stories and then the art, but I wanted this one purely for the art, and merely hope the story is good too. But, Grant Morrison wrote it, and I'm a fan of his work in JLA and New X-Men, and what I've read of Batman, so I'm pretty confident it will be good.

Also, the 6th book of the aforementioned Grant Morrison New X-Men books (still lack the 5th) and for whatever reason I bid on and won Ultimate X-Men Ultimate Collection volume 2, which really only consists of Ultimate X-Men vols 3 and 4.

Toys!

Some Silver and Blue Batman figure from Legends of the Dark Knight, whose name I have completely forgotten at this moment.

Inexpensive Aquaman figures in armor: Justice Armored Aquaman and DC Armory Aquaman. Lots of people weren't big fans of the Armored figures in the Justice line, but I think armor is cool, so I like them. Plus, they were only $6 each.

More Misc Marvel Figures! Stealth Iron Man and Sharon Carter 2 pack! White Hand Ninja and Dum Dum Dugan (SHIELD Agent) 2 pack! Planet Hulk and the final piece to the Annihilus Build A Figure! Marvel Select Diamond Variant Emma Frost! Spider-man Classics Carnage!

Misc Marvel and DC Figures: Scarlet Spider, Marvel Girl, Earth 2 Alex Luthor, Red Son Wonder Woman!

More Wonder Woman! I finally broke down and bought some Wonder Woman figures I've been look at for a long time, the previously shown Red Son WW is from the Superman story Red Son which is one of my all time favorite comics, and definitely my favorite Superman story. Instead of landing in Kansas and being raised by the humble farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, Superman's ship lands him in the fields of a Ukrainian farmer, where he is raised as a loyal member of the Soviet Socialist Party (Communist). It's a great story, and it's fun to see the characters we know and love in a Communist orientation. Superman is the Soviet symbol for Communism, and spreads Communist rule throughout the world, and Wonder Woman also believes in Communism.

Anyway, going back to Wonder Woman, I also finally got the JLA Classified Wonder Woman, based on Ed McGuinness' art (see the above JLA Classified comic). I'm excited for the new Ed McGuinness figures coming out later this year, or next, I'm not sure. And finally, I got the Justice League of America series 2 Wonder Woman. I like them.

And finally, my first taste of the Masters of the Universe Classics line, Teela. MOTUC is an online-only line by Mattel. There is a new figure every month, and they cost $20 each, plus shipping. You begin to see why I've never bought them before. Also, while I saw the show and played with the toys when I was a kid, He-Man holds no real nostalgic value for me. But one can never have too many female figures, so when I saw they were going to release a good looking figure with lots of cool accessories, how could I pass it up?

Teela comes with an alternate, helmeted head, a snake headdress, a snake staff, a sword, shield and a bird (named Zor or something like that, as if I care). She's a bit bigger than the DCUC line, about the size Big Barda could have been, but she's quite cool, and I think she was worth the price. If Mattel ever gets in to some She-Ra figures, I might have to buy some more.

A Moment of Silence for our departed friend...

The long nightmare is over, once again I have a computer. My several years old laptop (a Dell Inspiron 9100) crashed a couple weekends ago, and refused resuscitation, leaving me without access to my games, the many, many pictures I had taken for posting here, and without my programming projects. It was a horrible nearly 2 weeks until the replacement machine arrived, but it's here now, and thus begins the long procedure of reinstalling everything, and getting everything set up to my liking. Hopefully I'll be able to revive the Inspiron for just long enough to copy the entire contents of the hard drive over to the new box.

And here it is.

It is a Dell Inspiron 15, which makes for my third Dell Inspiron, though this one cost about $1000 less than the last one I bought, and is at least 3 times as powerful. So far, I like it, though I haven't yet played any games on it, nor done any programming (that's where I get really picky about how the computer works, keyboard layout, shortcut keys, mouse behavior, and so one). The screen is very pretty though, and it's nice as fast (the previous laptop had only 512 MB of RAM, and with Windows XP that's not nearly enough). It has 3 GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo, a 250 GB hard drive, and the extra nice screen (1600x900 resolution). It also weighs half or less than the 9100, which was a beast that could be used to bludgeon a moose to death. I could probably kill a cat with this one, and though there are cats in the neighborhood I wish death upon, I'm not going to use my shiny new laptop to do it.

Now that I have computer with which to write blog posts, and to edit photos with, I can take pictures of the stuff I've received lately, this covers about the last 3 weeks or so. I sold a few Star Wars items a couple of weeks ago, and with that money I went on a little spending spree, mostly for comics, but I got a fair number of toys as well. Let's start with the toys.

My growing interest in Marvel comics is causing me to pollute my collection with Marvel toys. I still have little to no interest in toys under 6", so I'm not touching Marvel Universe (or DC Infinite Heroes for that matter), and I'm by no means interested in acquiring all the past Marvel Legends figures (how ever many hundreds that is), but there are a few I'm trying to get, and now I'm watching current/future releases with interest. To start out my Marvel toy collection (not really, but who cares?) I'm starting out where I started my Marvel Comics collection, with Astonishing X-Men (I've only read 3/4ths of the books Joss Whedon wrote, but they're some of the best comics I've ever read). At the moment, I only have the cheap figures: Emma Frost (Diamond variant), Cyclops and Beast. I really want to get Colossus and Kitty Pryde, but they're the most expensive ones to get. Blarg. I'll just have to be patient.

While I was in Las Vegas last weekend, visiting as many Walmart and Toys 'R Us as I could, looking for DCUC Imperiex wave and Marvel Legends 2 packs wave 2.5, I got frustrated with not finding anything. So I made an impulse purchase (somewhat fulled by a similar purchase the week before), and grabbed Scorpion Venom. And I'm glad I did, because it's an awesome figure. He'll go nicely with Iron Spider-man (last week's impulse purchase), and it prompted me to try to get the various Carnage figures, a regular Venom, and Spider-man 2099 (the only one of which I have managed to win on eBay).

Speaking of Marvel Legends 2 packs, I've been trying to get the recent ones, particularly Nick Fury/Red Hand Ninja and Maria Hill/Iron Man. My cousin had extras of a couple of them though, so he sold me the Ninja and Maria Hill, still need to find Nick Fury. And earlier this week, ToysRUs.com put the variants up for order, so I ordered 2 each of the Sharon Carter/Stealth Iron Man and Dum Dum Dugan/White Hand Ninja, they should arrive soon this week. My cousin and I made a huge toy run this week, hitting 14 Walmarts, again looking for the blasted Imperiex Wave. We found nothing, except a couple of clearanced Marvel Legends: the Cannonball/Domino and Marvel Girl/Cable 2 packs, and Nova variant Human Torch. I happened to have won Marvel Girl on eBay for a good price, only the day before, so I left that 2 pack, but picked up the Domino pack. She looks pretty good, although she has a severely distended left knee, due to the posing in the packaging. Not being the slightest bit familiar with Cannonball, he's going to eBay. And that covers new Marvel figures, for the time being.

In a rare purchase, I picked up a couple of Star Wars figures. I wasn't entirely sure I would keep the comic pack, but I can't find the receipt now, so I guess it's mine. The comic pack is based on the Legacy comic series, which I was a big fan of, for the short time I bought monthlies. Someday I'll pick up the trades and read the whole story. Anyway, the Imperial Knights design is nifty.

I finally purchased a couple of Witchblade figures I've been looking at for the past couple of years, Ian Nottingham and Sara Pezzini (the Witchblade). They are of comparable size to Marvel Legends, and are nicely detailed, if not terribly pose-able. There's a black dress variant of Sara I'd like to get eventually, and a white suit variant of Nottingham. Someday.

And finally, a DC purchase. Barbie Supergirl, which I just barely missed the first time it showed up on ToysRUs.com on clearance a couple of months ago. She doesn't match with anything else in my collection (size- or style-wise), but she looks really good, so I'll probably keep her, until one of my daughters steals her from me.

On to comics. Let's start with misc stuff. Elektra: The Hand (which was really good, despite not being about Elektra at all), Tales of the Witchblade, and Checkmate: Chimera.

Some Superman and Supergirl comics: Superman: Man of Steel vol 2, Superman: True Brit, Supergirl: Many Happy Returns, and Superman: For All Seasons. I've previously read For All Seasons, it was a good story, though the art's not my favorite. I LOVE Tim Sale's stuff in Batman: Long Halloween and Dark Victory, but I don't think his style works as well for Superman. Plus, the guy's the size of a house, with a chin that Jay Leno must envy. I look forward to Supergirl, I really like Ed Benes' art, and True Brit was written by Kim 'Howard' Johnson and John Cleese of Monty Python, so it should be fun.

Got a bunch of JLA and related comics: The Tenth Circle, Seven Caskets, The Obsidian Age vol 1 (vol 2 was on the way, along with 52 vols 3 and 4, Justice vol 2 and more, but it looks like they're no longer coming, deadbeat seller), Final Night and The Tornado's Path (both of which are extras, and will go back to eBay), New Frontiers vols 1 and 2, and both the hardcover and softcover versions of Matt Wagner's Trinity (one of them will go to eBay, though I don't know which to keep), and Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC/Marvel Crossovers and Justice League: New Beginnings.

And I picked up most of the remaining Grant Morrison New X-Men books, 2-4 and 7, with 6 on the way, just need to grab 5. I still hate Quitely's and Kordy's art, but the stories are mostly pretty good, and the final book was drawn by Marc Silvestri, whose art is gorgeous. I've also been trying to pick up the House of M and Civil War series', and have started off my collection with House of M: Avengers, House of M: Civil War, Civil War: X-Men and Civil War: Iron Man. I look forward to reading them, once I have the complete sets.

And that is everything, that has arrived. There's a few more things on the way, but I'll deal with them when they arrive.

Pic of the Day 88 - Twice Daily!

Aquaman, from the JLA line box set, by DC Direct

This beard/hook hand variant of Aquaman was released only in the box set with Wonder Woman, Superman and John Stewart Green Lantern. John Stewart was similarly only released in the box set. The single carded figures had Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, in his Jim Lee costume, which I will be posting a picture of tomorrow night

This 'bright side' of yours is gloomy and smells funny. - Schlock Mercenary

Pic of the Day 86 - Twice Daily!

Donna Troy as Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman series 1 by DC Direct.

Donna Troy is Diana's sister. I guess Diana decided she needed a break from the Wonder Woman gig, and Donna Troy put on a sweet set of armor and took over until such time as Diana returned.

There is something out there in the darkness, something terrifying, something that will not stop until it gets revenge. Me. - Batman

Pic of the Day 19

I don't just collect toys, I've got a growing collection of comic trades. Green Lantern has always been a favorite super hero of mine, way back when I was a kid I probably heard of him through the Super Friends show, and didn't know much about him. I've since learned that Hal Jordan was really lame before he became evil.

Evil Cousin Derek and I have discussed how we really are interested by stories where the good guy eventually becomes the bad guy, so naturally, the story in which Hal Jordan goes a little crazy and decides to kill or de-power all the Green Lanterns, and kill the Guardians of the Universe and absorb all the Green Lantern energy was something I was interested in.

Also naturally, I really like Hal's replacement, Kyle Rayner. I don't have any of the hate that many Hal Jordan fans have (you know, seeing their favorite hero become a mass murderer and be replaced by some two-bit comic artist), and in fact he's still my favorite Green Lantern, though I also quite like John Stewart from his Animated Series' appearances, and Hal got much more interesting once he embraced his darker side and became Parallax and tried to reform the universe in his image, was stopped, was convinced (by Kyle) to try to stop the sun-eater, subsequently died, became the host for the Spectre, and was eventually resurrected and reinstated as a Green Lantern, apparently he went all Red Lantern (Rage) for a little bit, and then put on a Blue Lantern ring (Hope). I don't think he's been Yellow or Orange or Pink yet (Fear, Envy and Love, respectively), but hey, he was dead, maybe he can still be a Black Lantern (Death).

Anyway, it's a good story about Hal rejecting the rules and regulations of the Guardian and using the ring's power for entirely selfish reasons, and consequently becoming one of the most powerful villains ever (and getting a much cooler costume, but I'm always a sucker for armor), and the calling of a new Green Lantern, the first to have no yellow weakness (which was eventually given to all GL Corps members, once the GLC was reinstated), and the first to have to train himself, there being no Green Lantern Corps left to train him.

Okay, I'll stop talking now. These posts are supposed to be about the picture, with little commentary, but obviously I failed on this one.

Remember Kids: Thinking about things isn't the same as doing things. Otherwise everybody would be in jail. - Scary Go Round

At Long Last: New Stuff

As the long wait for DCUC 7 continues, I struggle to save my money to pay for my pre-order. However, I got such a good deal offered me a couple weeks ago on The Fwoosh, that I had to take it, and I also saw too good a deal to pass up last night at Walmart.

Lets start with Walmart. I found more of the Marvel Legends Ares wave figures last night, and though I already have Ares (and sold off all the figures but Iron Man and Crossbones) I had to buy Human Torch. Sure, it's not the variant I prefer, but it's still a really good looking figure, and the best part was the price. Check the picture below.

Click it for a larger view. Can you make out the price tag between Joker and his thug? It's $2. Yeah, I'll take it at that price. Heck, I'd buy all of them again at that price, but this was the only one I found.

The loose figures came from the Fwoosh deal, the remaining Movie Masters figures I couldn't afford to buy at full price, Scarecrow, Joker and Gotham Thug. I look forward to the next wave, which will hit sometime this summer, but I doubt DCUC will let up enough for me to get any of them. Also present is Commissioner Gordan from the Dark Victory line, missing his glasses, but he was thrown in for free, so who cares. He came with a much needed gun for Joker's goon. Also, DCUC 4 Ares, to replace the one I bought that has a melted forearm.

The second part of the Fwoosh deal was some Batman comics. The last bunch of Batman comics I got was from this same guy, and these are the ones I had to pass up because of insufficient funds. I wish I would have passed on all of them and waited until he gave me this super great deal, because they were all about $1 each. For trades that retail for $12-$20. Total cost for the figures and trades: $20. Super killer awesome deal, wish I could find more like that.

On the off chance that anybody cares (or for my own records, the comics are:

• Batman: Night Cries
  
• Superman: Emperor Joker
  
• Batman: Haunted Knight
  
• Batman: Tales of the Demon
  
• Batman: Officer Down
  
• Batman: Evolution
  
• Batman: Blind Justice
  
• JLA: Tower of Babel (which I really like, since I already have this one, this one will be a gift)
  
• Batman: Death in the Family (DIE, Jason Todd! I really only like Tim Drake as Robin, although I like Spoiler, so I'll probably like her as Robin, when I get around to reading War Games)
  
• Batman: Broken City
  
• Batman: As the Crow Flies
  
• Batman: Sword of Azrael
  

Remember Kids: Sure, it's just stuff. But it's MY stuff.

DC Universe Classics CheckList

Thanks to www.dcuc.info and Toy News International for providing the nice pictures of figures I don't have yet. All other photos are of my figures.

Wave 1, Rex Mason series

• Detective Batman (don't want)
  
• Etrigan
  
  
  
• Penguin
  
  
  
• Classic Red Tornado
  
  
  
• Modern Red Tornado (not released)
  
• Orion
  
  
  
• Collect & Connect - Rex Mason
  
  

Wave 2, Gorilla Grodd series

• Classic Aquaman
  
  
  
• Modern Aquaman
  
  
  
• Black Manta
  
  
  
• Harley Quinn
  
  
  
• Classic Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond)
  
  
  
• Modern Firestorm (Jason Rusch)
  
  
  
• Superman Blue
  
• Superman Red
  
• Build-A-Figure Gorilla Grodd
  

Wave 3, Solomon Grundy series

• Deathstroke
  
• Slade Wilson (unmasked Deathstroke)
  
• Green Lantern - Hal Jordan
  
• Nightwing
  
• Robin
  
• Sinestro - Classic
  
• Sinestro Corp variant Sinestro
  
• Build-A-Figure Solomon Grundy
  
  

Wave 4, Despero series

• Ares
  
• Captain Atom
  
• Captain Atom Kingdom Come variant
  
• Batman Beyond
  
• Cyborg
  
• Wonder Woman
  
• Wonder Woman Artemis variant
  
• Collect & Connect Despero
  

Walmart Exclusive Wave (Wave 5), Metallo series

• Amazo
  
• The Atom
  
• Black Lightning
  
• Eradicator
  
• The Riddler
  
• Collect & Connect Metallo
  

Wave 6, Kalibak series

• Dr Impossible - Mr Miracle variant
  
  
• Hawkman - Classic
  
  
• Killer Moth - Classic
  
  
• Life-suit Superman
  
  
• Long Hair Superman
  
  
• Mr Miracle
  
  
• Shazam! (Captain Marvel)
  
  
• Collect & Connect - Kalibak
  

Wave 7, Atom Smasher series

• Aquaman - Camo
  
  
• Flash - Barry Allen
  
  
• Kid Flash - Wally West
  
  
• Big Barda - Hair
  
  
• Big Barda - Headdress
  
  
• Blue Beetle - Ted Kord
  
  
• Booster Gold - Classic
  
  
• Booster Gold - Modern
  
• Captain Cold
  
  
• Collect & Connect Atom Smasher
  
  

Exclusives

• SDCC 2008 Lobo
  

TRU 2 Packs

• Lightray & Orion
  
  
  
• Mongol & Cyborg Superman (DCSH re-release)
  

MattyCollector.com Exclusives

• Adam Strange & Starfire
  
  
  

Unreleased

• Red Tornado modern (wave 1)
  

Short bio's on these characters can be found at http://dcuniverseclassics.com/

Updates:

• Jan 19: Found Etrigan at Toys R Us, I picked it up, though I'm not sure I'll keep it.
  
• Jan 20: My wife pointed out that this really is my NEEDlist, not a wantlist, so the title was updated accordingly. :)
  
• Mar 1: Reevaluated my desires and moved some of the maybes to needs.
  
  
• Mar 1: Decided to keep, open and snap a quick picture of Etrigan.
  
• Mar 7: Received the last pieces for Metamorpho in the mail the other day, so he is now complete.
  
• Apr 10: Decided to get a second Metamorpho, see if I can piece him together for $4 or less per piece.
  
• Apr 18: Received the two leg pieces for the second Metamorpho.
  
• Apr 20: With NYCC news rolling in I've updated this list to include Waves 4, 5 (the Walmart wave) and 6 and re-arranged everything a little bit.
  
• May 1: My case of DCUC 2 figures arrived from CornerStoreComics today, so marked off the figures I got.
  
• May 31: Finally got around to adding pictures of the SDCC Exclusive and TRU Exlusive 2 packs I want. Also updated wave 6 with preview pics from WW Philly.
  
• Aug 28: Wave 3 has arrived, marking off the ones I have. Also updated with waves announced at SDCC.
  
• Jan 16, 2009: Began converting this want list to a full blown checklist, replacing pre-sales photos with pictures from my personal collection.